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CORPORATIONS GIVE BIG TO BOTH SIDES: The Democratic Governors Association and Republican Governors Association share 48 top donors, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of the group’s top 100 non-individual donors indicates. Of these 48 donors, 45 are corporations and three are trade associations, the Center finds. This reinforces the maxim that companies seek access to politicians, and by donating to both parties, they ensure that access regardless of which party holds majority.

High profile donors that give to both sides include Comcast, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Coca-Cola, AFLAC and Verizon. The majority of these corporations donate about the same amount of money to both sides with five corporations giving exactly 50%: Novartis Corp, Kolhberg & Co, KKR & Co, Jacobs Entertainment Inc. and Intuit Inc.

Of the 48 donors, 16 come from the health sector, 10 from general business, eight from communications and electronics, six from finance and insurance, five from energy, two from agribusiness and one from the transportation sector.

When totaling the top 100 non-individual donors from this election cycle, the DGA raised $28.2 million with 59 percent coming from corporations, 36 percent from unions and five percent from trade associations. The RGA raised $30.5 million this election cycle from its top 100 non-individual donors with 70 percent coming from corporations, 28 percent coming from trade associations and two percent from ideological organizations.

The two governors associations are the primary fundraising arm for the gubernatorial candidates. They run advertisements and distribute funds to committees that are in close races. This election cycle the Republican Governors Association out raised the Democratic Governors Association $89 million to $50 million respectively. With two more races to be determined the Republicans will have between 29 and 31 seats and the Democrats will have between 18 and 20 seats.

While Fimian received no help from the National Republican Campaign Committee, he did benefit from the $1.8 million spent on negative issue ads targeting Connolly by the American Action Network, a conservative non-profit group that does not disclose its donors. The American Action Network spent $950,000 on an advertisement titled “Naked Connolly” on the Thursday before the election. They previously spent $850,000 on an advertisement called “Backpack” on October 15th.

Outside money is just one of many factors that can determine the result of a close congressional race. For example, Connolly told the Washington Post he likely benefited from a comment by Fimian when he said the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings may have been prevented if more students were “packing heat.” As also mentioned in the Post, Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University political scientist said, “…Had there merely been some generic moderate Republican running against him this year, that person likely would have won.”

There are still eight House races to be determined according to Politico.

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